Los Angeles. 1969. Joe Martello and his teammate, Eddie Beltran, join a crowd of longshoremen at the docks. Eddie engages in a game of dice with a violent drug dealer. While Eddie gambles, Joe is focused on Catalina, the drug dealer's wife-a beautiful young woman who wears death's head earrings and has a series of odd markings on her neck. When Eddie loses at the game of chance, Joe is forced to pay the debt. His simple life of college and baseball becomes complicated with beatings, guns, mezcal, hallucinogens, pit bulls, an irresistible and dangerous attraction to Catalina, and a determination to recover his mother's bequest from the drug dealers, even at the risk of losing his life.